Tell Me A Story
by Song Of A Free Heart
Summary: A collection of drabbles and oneshots for Katherine and Nightlight.
1. Chapter 1

**My first Bedtime Stories drabble, done for an anon request on tumblr. There's a deplorable lack of NightlightxKatherine fluff, so here's my contribution. Hopefully there will be more!**

_Kiss Me Softly_

The sun was setting over Santoff Claussen, and Kathrine sat high in the branches of pine tree, looking out at the sky that looked as though it had been painted by an artist's brush. Sunlight streamed around the wispy clouds, illuminating the world in a sea of light before the sun set below the horizon.

Movement caught her attention from the corner of her eye and she glanced over, smiling as she saw Nightlight join her on the branch.

He cocked his head to the side, silently asking if she was all right.

"I'm fine," she assured. "It just got a little too loud."

They both looked toward the clearing a little ways away, where the village was in the middle of a happy party. Even from the distance, they could hear North in the middle of a dramatic story, his voice rumbling through the forest.

Nightlight nodded understanding, taking her hand loosely in his.

Katherine smiled, leaning her head on his shoulder. For several minutes she continued to look out at the sunset, but soon her eyes drifted close, comforted just by Nightlight's presence.

She didn't know how long they sat there, but as the sun disappeared below the horizon the temperature began to ease down, the breeze picking up a little.

Reluctantly she opened her eyes and lifted her head.

"We should probably head back," she said, looking toward the lanterns in the clearing that were now easily seen.

She prepared to climb down, but Nightlight's hand tightened around hers, keeping her in her place. When she glanced back, and found he was watching her intently with his green eyes.

Her eyes widened as he reached out to touch her cheek, calloused fingers ghosting over her skin in a way that caused every hair on her body rise on end - but in a way she very much enjoyed.

"Katherine," he whispered, leaning closer. In a voice she heard so rarely, but still loved more than she could put into words.

Her eyes closed as their lips touched.


	2. 2 Understood

**On tumblr I received an anonymous request for a Bedtime Stories oneshot set in the world of Herheadinthecloud's incredible fic **_**Project GUARDIAN: The Rise & Fall**_** AU. (I don't care if you ship Rainbow Snowcone or not – seriously, go read it.) Herheadintheclouds has given me permission (and some details) to go ahead with this. Unfortunately, I write better dramatic fluff than I do spy thrillers. **

**But I just finished reading chapter 38… and I think maybe we need a little fluff?**

**This is set before **_**project GUARDIAN, **_**probably about the time Jack started in the program. Someone needed a little happy fluff about that time, so why not Katherine and Nightlight.**

**Anyway. Nightlight's apartment (both the complex and the number itself) are an apartment I've lived in. It's in Washington State – but I don't know if there was a GUARDIAN base in that state, so let's just say it's somewhere.**

_Understood_

Apartment 736. Building seven, the sixth apartment on the third floor of the Knoll's At Inglewood Apartments. Katherine had helped Nightlight pick out the apartment when he decided he wanted to leave the base. He had never said exactly why – he hadn't had to. Katherine understood. Even if she hadn't been a GUARDIAN, she would have understood.

It was Nightlight. She always understood whatever he couldn't put into words. She was the one he didn't have to speak to. She was his voice when the one on his throat failed him.

So why couldn't she find her own voice?

It had been two months after he had undergone the procedure. As time had gone on, the more missions they both came back from – each more challenging than the last as they proved themselves to the board – he had looked at her and she'd known he needed space. Space from the Core, from TSAR LUNAR and everything the Russian man asked of him. A place where he could breathe, where he wouldn't have to be a GUARDIAN; even if it was just for a few hours between assignments.

So she had helped him find the apartment, pick out furniture, and set it up. It was where she came when she needed more space than her room at the base offered. It was why the second room was unofficially hers.

Now she stood outside the white door, hesitating where she had never hesitated before. She gripped her key, the edges of the metal digging into her palm. She was allowed to come and go as she please, but now she felt as though she would be intruding.

Or maybe she just didn't want to go in.

Finally, after it felt as though she had dithered for a year and a day, she unlocked the door and went inside. She took a deep breath of the familiar scent of the air, something she couldn't describe that was uniquely Nightlight, with a vague undertone of gun metal and oil. It was so feint she might not even have caught it if she hadn't known exactly what she was. And as a spy, those smells were comforting. Nightlight's scent was home.

"I'm back," she called, out of habit, tossing her purse onto the sectional couch as she always did. Today, though, she paused to look at it. When they had been picking it out, the sales girl had mistaken them for a couple, commenting on how cute they were. Nightlight had withdrawn into himself (fallen silent didn't really mean much when it came to him), while Katherine had blushed, and been unable to look him in the eye for the rest of the day. It had been one of the few times she had been unable to interpret his silence.

Shaking off the memory, she headed toward the master bedroom, where her sensitive hearing caught the sound of movement. As she entered, Nightlight glanced over his shoulder. He offered her a welcoming smile, asymmetrical hair falling into his green eyes.

The green was the same color as before the procedure, but made brighter by the center gene that was now wrapped around a single strand of his DNA. She hated to admit it, but sometimes the brightness of the irises unnerved her, and she missed his pale blond hair.

Sometimes she missed who they had been before Project GUARDIAN. The possibility of a normal life had vanished when they became spies. How much had been destroyed by the procedure?

She shouldn't be thinking like this. To be a GUARDIAN was an honor. But sometimes she wondered.

For now, they pushed those thoughts away and did her best to return his smile as she walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, next to a pile of three perfectly folded shirts.

"Are you ready?"

He picked up the shirts and nodded as he set them in the backpack he would be taking with him. Anything that didn't line up with airline regulations was already zipped up in the hidden compartment lined with a special material that would render it invisible to airport security.

On his nightstand was a bottle of hair dye. It looked as though they were making him a brunet this time. Next to that was the case for his contact lenses.

She hadn't realized she was staring at them until Nightlight touched her shoulder, which was left bare by the tank top she wore. The jolt of their center genes responding to each other through their skin was enough to raise the hair on the back of her neck, though she was getting used to it. It was like the string of a guitar being plucked, resonating through her body. Pulled from the reverie she had fallen into, she blinked and looked over at him.

"Are you all right?" he asked, in his quiet voice. It wasn't smooth, really. There was an almost smoky quality to it, like the gentle touch of calloused fingertips on her shoulder. It was one thing that hadn't been changed by the procedure. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend that he was still the Nightlight she had known for so long.

Unable to sit still, Katherine stood up, walking around him and the bed to look out the window on the other side of the room. Out at the shops the apartments overlooked. The residential area was behind them, further up the hill. The nearest base, their headquarters, was a twenty minute drive. Between the buildings, hiding many of them from view, were evergreen and young maple trees. The later were just starting to turn deep pink and bright vermillion with the change of seasons.

"This isn't a game," she said, hugging herself, and not sure who she was talking to. "I know it never was. But this—" she bit her lip, fighting back the emotions she had thought that she had under control. "This isn't some smuggling right, or Mexican drug cartel. You're going up against the most wanted terrorist in the world."

"Not Pitch personally," Nightlight said. "And not alone."

She knew it was meant to comfort her, but it didn't help. She continued to stare out the window.

"I just want you to be careful."

Nightlight left his packing, coming over to her. He didn't speak. He didn't have to. The hand on her arm, once the static shock past, was a promise that he would be careful. He couldn't promise to come back (those promises were too easily broken in their line of work). That he would take care was all she could ask for.

"What's wrong he asked after a moment, voice now a whisper.

Their connection went both ways. And while she didn't need another voice, she couldn't hide from him.

"I shouldn't be so scared," she said. "But if anything does happen to you, I don't want to live regretting that I never told you.

His eyes asked silently.

And, somehow, that gave her a small burst of courage, so she spoke before it could fade.

"I love you," she said. "I've wanted to tell you for so long."

Nightlight touched her cheek, knuckles skimming down the side of her face. "Katherine."

She finally looked up to meet his bright green eyes – and finally understood. If she hadn't been so caught up in her own emotions, she would have understood years ago that he had been waiting for her far longer than she had been trying to tell him her own feelings.

She smiled as her vision blurred with tears she couldn't fight back. Rising on her toes to brush her lips against his.

The jolt from the contact was different, the string deeper. It caused every hair on her body to rise as their genes responded to each other. She felt Nightlight shiver.


End file.
